Tip #253: Keep your emails unique

Say, you want to do some checks for inbound emails on Senders Account.

Matching Senders Account

It will work well until one of other email-enabled entities (typically systemuser) has a record with the same email address. Having multiple system entities (systemuser, contact, account) with the same email is a bad idea because, when system starts matching sender’s email to figure out which entity record can be marked as a Sender for the email, it will go in the order of creation. So if you happen to have a system user that shares email address with a contact from a Fourth Coffee, the condition above will never trigger causing you hours of despair and lost sleep. Keep. Your. Emails. Unique.

Tip #252: Unconditional business rules

From time to time there is a need for a business rule that simply copies value from one field into another unconditionally. For example, with the faxes being slowly but surely on their way out, we might simply want fax field to hold a copy of the main phone number. Well, not really, but let’s assume that for the demo purposes.

Instinct is to write something like that:
Non working business rule
It’s great but, unfortunately, it will only work in form load event and not when the phone number changes. Leaving condition empty means that there is no condition when the action needs to be executed with the exception of unconditional form load event. Adding a condition (any condition, in fact) that includes form fields will wire up the action to onchange event for these fields. For example, in this rule:
Working business rule
action will be triggered when either phone or fax value change.

Tip #251: But I am a user!

The other day I was using CRM in a non production environment of CRM Online, and when I saved an account, I received a message from CRM telling me I did not have a CRM Online license. This was strange, because I was logged in successfully, and I didn’t have any issues doing anything else.

After checking behind the door for Rod Serling, I examined the environment. It was a sandbox organization that I recently had refreshed with a copy of my production organization. It turned out that due to the organization security settings, not all users in prod were enabled in the sandbox.

The issue was that there was a real-time workflow owned by a user in prod that was not enabled in the sandbox. When I tried to save the record, it was telling me that user was not enabled in the organization–it just felt like it was talking about me, because it happened when I saved the record.

After enabling the user (or reassigning the workflow) the problem went away.

Tip #250: Where do you see Advanced Find View

One of the system views for every entity in any CRM organization is so called Advanced Find View. It’s rarely customized, probably because there is no clear understanding when and how this view is used. System entities might have some columns added to this view while all custom entities receive Name and Created On ubiquitous combination.

The definition of this view is very concise and tell us exactly what it’s used for and how to make it useful.

The default view used to display results when using Advanced Find. This view also defines the columns used by default when new custom public views or personal views are created without defining a view to use as a template.

In a nutshell, every time your users click Create Personal View, they receive the default set of columns from Advanced Find View. To make this view useful, include all common attributes for that particular entity so that end-users do not have to. For example, if you have an entity Project for managing customer projects, it’d be a good idea to include start date, end date and project status but get rid of Created On column.

Tip #249: Can I disable the personal queues?

Dear tipsters, I find the personal queues in CRM (the queues starting with “<“) make the queues very cumbersome. We don’t use them. Can I disable them?

Yes. Yes you can.

Another option, if you have SP1 for 2013, is convert them to private queues. You will notice that for users created post SP1, the user queue will be configured to be a private queue with only the user on the queue team. Queues for existing users should be automatically converted to private queues. If you find after opting in to the SP1 features that the user queues are still public, you can change the queue type to private, and the owner will automatically be added to the queue team.

By changing to private and adding the user to the queue team, the user queues will only be visible to the user and system administrators, and the queue views will be more manageable.

Tip #248: If you use mail merge, use the Outlook client

If you launch mail merge from CRM via a browser, after the mail merge dialog, you will download a file. When you open the file, you will see this message in Word:

This message is enough to scare some users away from using mail merge. To continue, you need to click “enable” on the yellow bar at the top, click the “Add-ins” tab, then click the Dynamics CRM button.

There is an easier way. it is called CRM for Outlook.

When you launch mail merge from the Outlook client, you will be presented with the same mail merge dialog; however, after you click the “download” button, the user will be taken directly into the Word mail merge process. No need to enable the macro or travel to the add-in tab. This is because the mail merge is launched directly within Microsoft Office, rather than from an external website.

If you regularly use mail merge, the Outlook client will make your experience much more seamless. Even if you prefer using CRM via browser for everything else, having the Outlook client installed for mail merge is worth it if you need mail merge.

Tip #247: Assign records to disabled users

When you click the “assign” button to assign a record to a user, you can only choose an active/enabled user, right?

Wrong.

When you click the assign button and select “Assign to another user or team,” you only see enabled users listed. This is because the lookup field is set to use the “Enabled Users” list.

But if you click the lookup button, scroll down to select “lookup more records,” the lookup dialog will appear. From there, you can select any view, including the disabled user view.

From the disabled user view, you can select a disabled user and assign the record to that user.

Why would you want to do this?

Typically you want active records to be owned by enabled users; however, there are several scenarios where you would want to assign records to users who are no longer with your company. For example, say you are creating or importing some legacy opportunity records. in this case, you might want to have the opportunity owned by the original owner, as it will be valuable to know who the sales representative was at the time of the sale.

Tip #246: Slow down

If you have been following our marketing initiatives, you know by now that recalling emails does not work and just makes you look like a <insert>. It’s all well when double-sending technique is used to prop your sales figures but what about those occasions when you pressed the Send button only to realize split moment later that you shouldn’t have done it, really. Individual causes range from forgetting to attach a file to calling your boss a <insert>.

I was told that the period between you pushing the send button and realizing that you shouldn’t have done it is called ohnosecond and apparently it’s well under 10 seconds on most occasions.

If you use Outlook, there is a simple solution to mitigate the self-harm and extend the ohnosecond.

Click Files > Manage Rules & Alerts
Click New Rule
Select Apply rule on messages I send, click Next
Click Next, then agree to apply rule to every message
Check defer delivery by a number of minutes, click a number of in the lower panel, click OK to set it to 1, click Next
Check except if it is marked as importance, set importance to High, click Next
Name the rule something profound, set other options as needed

Your rule should look like this:
Auto-delay rule

This rule will delay all outbound emails by 1 minute. So if you say “Doh!” within one minute of pushing the send button, calmly reach for the Outbox and nuke that message. For urgent boss stuff, set message priority to high.

Tip #244: Getting ready for the December release (CRM 2015)

Dear CRMtipoftheday,

What do I need to do to prepare for the December upgrade?

Besides this blog, there are many good resources to help you prepare for the 2015 upgrade.

Watch the first five videos on the dynamics CRM YouTube channel. They are hosted by members of the product team and include great information about the December release. If you Use CRM online I would still watch the upgrading video. While you will not have to mess with any of the server stuff, It includes some really important information about supported browsers and enabling new functionality. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRvH_Jgj96NlxvDPfoNw28caAHn0zU6dJ

Visit the “Getting ready for the next release” page. It includes many links about the new functionality, the release preview guide, and for online customers include information about how to schedule your update.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/get-ready-for-the-next-release.aspx

Bookmark these links and check them regularly. The CRM team is working hard to proactively provide information about the release.

This release is not going to have as dramatic an impact on user experience as the fall 2013 released did. But there are some great new features that you are going to want to enable.

Some recommendations:

if you did not enable the new functionality with the spring release, do it before your upgrade to the fall release. If you don’t do this, these features will be enabled when you are updated, and I think it’s better to get that out-of-the-way first so you have more time to plan.
if your system entities are still using the information forms, you need to start transitioning to the new forms. The 2015 update will still allow you to use them but the next release is going to get rid of them. Microsoft has given us notice that these are going away.

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